Tag Archives: Dungeons and Dragons

I started writing science fiction back in the 1980’s for a very practical reason: I couldn’t find enough new science fiction that I wanted to read. So, I took the “If you want something done right…” attitude and started hammering away on the keyboard. I hit stride on this endeavor in the 2000’s. That’s when I fleshed out the Technofiction concept that became the heart of my writing. The basic concept of Technofiction is that science fiction story telling should be about how science and technology change how we humans live. Stuff makes a difference. Today we aren’t living in caves and carrying clubs because what we now know and what we now have make a difference.

I have loved science and history since I was a teenager in the 60’s, and I loved 70’s-style Dungeons and Dragons — a style where interactive story telling was much more important than consulting lists of capabilities. (I was one of the first one hundred people to play D&D, and an interesting story there.) The mix of these two over the years made me more sensitive to internal consistency in stories.

My friends and I would be working through a D&D story one of us had created and someone would say, “Yes, but what about…” and be pointing out a plot hole or world inconsistency which we would then address before we moved on. I say “we” with good reason, these stories were interactive so the DM (Dungeon Master) and the players were on the same side in getting these issues worked out.

With hours and hours of practice my scenarios got very consistent, and I got quite flexible in presenting them. These are traits that have carried into my story telling and story experiencing these days — these are the heart of my Technofiction reviews of books and movies I have in the Tales of Technofiction section on White World.